March 21, 2011

Extreme Partner on Lifecycle Management: Citrix

Network solutions specialist Extreme Networks, Inc., announced that it is collaborating with virtual computing giant Citrix Systems to integrate server virtualization with the network. The company earlier announced its mobility and virtualization lifecycle management solution, XNV, with initial support for Citrix XenServer and VMware.

XNV virtualization and cloud architecture is designed to enable network level virtualization support including management, reporting, and configuration and integrates the network management system with the virtualization management platform to ensure visibility and synchronization between the server virtualization environment and the network.

The company’s data center network solutions are focused on providing an open and integrated virtualization environment, enabling data centers to optimize and automate the networking function. Utilizing the ExtremeXOS operating system and intelligence layer, applications like virtualization mobility in conjunction with the virtualization platform Citrix XenServer are more easily integrated and managed by the network.

"One of the major challenges in the next phase of virtualization adoption lies in integration and support for networking functionality," said Gordon Mangione, vice president of the datacenter and cloud division at Citrix. "Extreme Networks offers an open platform approach that enables XenServer customers to tightly integrate server virtualization with the network, giving users a seamless mobile VM experience in the data center."

With the BlackDiamond and Summit switches running the ExtremeXOS operating system, Mangione said Extreme Networks is well suited to deliver high- performance cloud-based networking infrastructure. With data center features including XNV and Direct Attach, the company has helped lead integration across multi-vendor virtualized environments in managed hosting, cloud and enterprise environments, he said.

"Extreme Networks is addressing the advanced capabilities enabled by virtualization through an open network, multi-hypervisor approach," said Kevin Ryan, director of data center solutions for Extreme Networks. "Citrix is an ideal integration partner as one of the leaders in server virtualization, and as a platform of choice of many of our customers in the managed hosting and cloud marketplace."

The company also announced a partnership with Nimsoft to better address managed hosting and cloud service providers who need to monitor and optimize their hosting connections and environments. The itegration was based on the ExtremeXOS operating system to integrate with the Nimsoft Monitoring Solution (NMS), and offer real-time visibility of the network to its customers with NMS dashboards and reports.

"Customers are increasingly looking for hosted solutions that can provide adaptable scalability, improved cost-effectiveness, and rock-solid reliability," said Gary Read, Nimsoft CEO. "The combination of Extreme Networks' cloud-based networking solutions and NMS uniquely fulfill this market demand by providing customers with both high-value cloud infrastructure and high-value visibility into that infrastructure."